Baker Hughes reported on Friday that the number of oil and gas rigs in the United States increased by 7 this week, bringing the total rig count to 439.
Last week, the U.S. oil and gas rig count increased by 2. The total number of active oil and gas drilling rigs in the U.S. is now just 90 fewer than this time last year.
The oil rig count increased by 7 this week, bringing the total oil rig count to 344 this week. The number of gas rigs increased by 1 to 94. The number of miscellaneous rigs fell by 1.
The EIA’s estimate for oil production in the United States for the week ending April 9 rose by 100,000 bpd this week to 11 million barrels per day. The EIA estimates that U.S. oil production will reach a modest 11.04 million bpd this year.
Canada’s overall rig count decreased this week by 2. Oil and gas rigs in Canada now sit at 56 active rigs, up 26 on the year.
The rig count in the Permian basin increased by 3 this week. The Permian’s total rig count is now just 56 rigs below this time last year.
The Frac Spread Count provided by Primary Vision shows that fracking crews are trending upward overall, now hovering above 200, showing a significant increase over the modest double-digit figures seen during the height of the pandemic. The frac spread count, which estimates the number of completion crews finishing off previously drilled wells, came in at 206 according to available data for the week ending April 9. This compares to a frac spread count of just 45 in May of last year.
For the week ending April 16, the frac spread count rose to 220 from the previous week's 206. The last time the frac spread was above 220 was the week ending March 27 of last year, just two weeks after the WHO declared Covid-19 a pandemic.
At 12:00 p.m. EDT, WTI was trading down $0.34 per barrel on the day at $63.12—up more than $3 per barrel on the week on forecasts of improved economic factors and more optimistic oil demand figures from both the IEA and OPEC.
The Brent benchmark was trading down $0.17 per barrel on the day, at $66.77 per barrel.
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By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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